Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Tim. 4:12

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Thoughts About Culture...

I've noticed that many Christians want to run from culture or even blame our culture for what students do. What do you think?

I don't think that we should run from culture. Don't get me wrong. Culture can affect us. I struggled with eating disorders and body image issues for more than 10 years. Part of the fuel behind my struggle was comparing myself to a standard of beauty our culture set.

Christians tend to separate themselves from our culture. Culture is not the problem. The problem lies in what people do with culture. I think that we should look at our culture like any other culture. If I moved to Africa to be a missionary, I would immerse myself in the culture. I would learn the language and the different facets of the culture so that I could more adequately minister to those people. I think the same is true with our American culture. We need to learn the culture and not separate ourselves from it so that we can more adequately minister to our people.

I greatly admire people like the band Switchfoot. They are Christian guys who are in the secular music industry. They aren't there to necessarily witness to their audience, but rather influence the other musicians in the industry. We need more influencial people like that in our culture.

Again, people can misuse aspects of our culture, but we must learn to not become so separated that we lose our effectiveness to minister. What are your thoughts?

I agree with the main blog. We need to see our culture as a tool. It's not bad in itself - but it depends onhow you use it. God can totally bless people through american culture, but satan can totally screw people over with it too. People can bless each other or hurt eachother through the culture too